Mpumalanga High Court orders the return of vehicles used for emergency services in Lydenburg
Bohlabela Region Fire Emergency Services was ordered to return their fleet, valued at R4.8m, to the manufacturer, Marcé Fire Fighting Technology.
On July 20, the Mpumalanga High Court’s Judge Henk Roelofse ordered Bohlabela Region Fire Emergency Services and its director, Arthur Wright-Baker, to return a fleet of three unpaid vehicles, valued at R4.8m, to the manufacturer, Marcé Fire Fighting Technology.
According to Jan Steyn, managing director of Marcé, they did not receive any payment for these vehicles after the delivery in June 2022.
Steyn stated in his affidavit that Wright-Baker had initially left him under the impression that he had had an agreement with the Thaba Chweu Local Municipality (TCLM).
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However, no such agreement between Wright-Baker and TCLM was found to exist. Some documents were presented to Steyn during a meeting at the TCLM offices in Lydenburg on May 5 last year.
However, this was found to be a letter of intent and not a contract with TCLM, as Wright-Baker had alleged.
This letter had been issued by the previous acting municipal manager, Spiwe Matsi, in June 2021. Matsi presented the letter of intent to the council at that time, but it was deferred back to the portfolio committee. Afterwards, the item was never presented to the council again, and no agreement was in place.
Louis Horn, Marcé’s lawyer at the time, started investigating the validity of these documents presented to Marcé in September, three months after the delivery of the vehicles. A letter of guarantee from the Ehlanzeni District Municipality (EDM) for the purchasing of the vehicles was also presented at the meeting in 2022.
This document was stamped with a barcode apparently used to make the documents seem official. A statement by EDM said it had no memorandum of understanding in place with Wright-Baker for him to perform emergency services on behalf of EDM.
The court’s judgment stated that the South African National Standard code of practice was not adhered to, and no payment was made for the three vehicles by Wright-Baker. The court documents state:
“A contractual obligation on the part of the guarantor to pay the beneficiary on the occurrence of a specified event is dependent on the underlying contract, which gave rise to the guarantee.”
Wright-Baker was ordered to deliver the vehicles back to Marcé Fire Fighting Technology within 24 hours. Additionally, he was made liable for Marcé Fire Fighting Technology’s legal fees.
